| Case File | |
| Location: | Grand Cape Mount County, Liberia |
| Project: | Gold mine, processing facilities and related infrastructure |
| Companies: | Bea Mountain Mining Corporation, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Avesoro Resources Inc., which is ultimately owned by MNG Group of Turkey |
| Key concerns: |
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| Community goals: | Full implementation of all agreements already signed with the company
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| Key investors and buyers: | Three European development banks – DEG (German), Proparco (French) and FMO (Dutch) are linked to the Liberian mine through investments in FirstRand Bank, a South African commercial bank which financed the project, along with Nedbank. The South African government’s export credit agency, ECIC, guaranteed the loan. The International Finance Corporation, part of the World Bank, had previously investment in the project, but pulled out after an accident that spilled cyanide and arsenic into a river. Early company disclosures revealed that gold from the New Liberty mine was being sold to the MKS PAMP refinery in Switzerland, a member of the London Bullion Market’s Good Delivery List. Major consumer brands, including Alphabet, Apple, Disney, Starbucks and others disclose that they sourced gold from this refinery in their conflict minerals reports to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. |
| Our partners: | Liberian NGOs |
| Outcomes: | Bea Mountain Mining Corporation agreed to construct a water tower to ensure that the community has adequate access to safe and sustainable drinking water. They also agreed to repair a road that community members depended on to access a healthcare clinic, and assured communities that no underground activities are taking place underneath their villages or anywhere outside the closed company premises. Communities also have an improved relationship with the company, consisting of regular meetings and increased communication. company will also convene regular. |
With infrastructure, social services and their economy decimated by a protracted civil war, Liberia has sought to attract foreign investment as part of its effort to rebuild. The New Liberty gold mine project promised good jobs, improved infrastructure, and various other social benefits to communities in a remote forest region of Liberia. However, community leaders say that the project displaced them from their homes and farms, polluted their water, and failed to provide those benefits. The company instead left thousands waiting for permanent housing for years, following a botched resettlement project that endangered communities after a serious cyanide spill.
The mine is operated by Bea Mountain Mining Corporation, a wholly-owned subsidiary of privately held Avesoro Resources Inc. Avesoro Resources is ultimately owned by the MNG Group of Turkey, which is controlled by the billionaire Günal family. Bea Mountain Mining Corporation first signed a Mining Development Agreement with the Liberian government in 2001, giving it a mining license covering a 457 km2 area in western Liberia. The mining license area contains a series of gold deposits, of which the New Liberty Gold Mine was the first to be developed.
The original project included an open pit mine, a processing plant, a tailings storage facility and a waste rock dump, as well as related infrastructure. Construction began in 2014, and full commercial production began in 2016. The company then continued to expand the project by developing the Ndablama satellite deposit and other deposits in the area.
Around 2,000 people were forcibly resettled, losing their homes and farmland to make way for the mine’s open pit. Community members report being pressured to sign agreements that moved them into temporary, inadequate housing in 2014, while the company stopped working on construction of their permanent homes, leaving them unfinished for years. It took four years before community members began to get possession of their resettlement homes, and even then, there were problems with the size and quality.
To make matters worse, the company seriously underestimated the amount of land needed, failing to acquire enough land to ensure that resettled residents would have access to agricultural land. As the population of the resettlement town has boomed because of the mining project, there is no land available for farming.
As farmers and artisanal miners, community survival previously relied on access to land and natural resources. They ate primarily what they could grow, hunt, and fish, and supplemented their farming income with small-scale mining. Affected communities have also suffered restrictions on land use and loss of access to agricultural lands and forests they used for hunting, leading to food insecurity and loss of livelihoods. Artisinal miners and those who provided goods and services to the miners were negatively impacted as well, because the company’s mining license permitted it to restrict this type of small-scale mining, and these important economic opportunities disappeared.
The project has also been beset by design flaws and dangerous accidents. Between December 2015 and June 2016, the mine’s tailings storage facility periodically released harmful chemicals, including cyanide and arsenic, because of a defect in the processing plant. The processing plant caused at least one significant cyanide spill in March 2016, which eventually prompted the company to temporarily suspend operations of the plant. Nearby communities suffered from mass fish deaths and serious skin rashes, and they fear other health risks from their exposure to the polluted water.
Community members have struggled to hold the company accountable. At least one protest to try to secure the promised benefits resulted in police violence, with community members beaten, arrested and detained, and later blacklisted for employment. Some residents were allegedly injured by police and never received proper medical care.
Liberian NGOs that had been working with the community since 2015 turned to Inclusive Development International to help investigate the project’s financial backers and gold off-takers. Through this research, we identified that the German development agency DEG, the French development bank Proparco, and the Dutch development bank FMO, were all linked to the project through their investments in South Africa’s FirstRand Bank. This enabled the communities to file a groundbreaking complaint to the development banks’ accountability mechanism, opening the door to a formal mediation process with the company.
EG, Proparco and FMO have been lending money to FirstRand Bank of South Africa for years. FirstRand participated in project loans of $110 million to develop New Liberty while it was a client of the development banks. While the development banks “ring-fenced” their loans to FirstRand, restricting their use to particular types of projects, all three development banks take a portfolio-wide approach to their financial intermediary lending. This approach, recognizing that money is fungible, requires banks like FirstRand to apply stringent social and environmental standards to all of their high-risk clients, no matter their size or location and regardless of any ring fences.
The complaint, filed with the development banks’ Independent Complaints Mechanism (ICM), described the harm experienced by each of the five communities in their own words. An annex to the complaint that we drafted details how the European development banks are exposed to the project and argues that the banks’ novel “portfolio-wide approach” to financial intermediary lending should be interpreted to give affected communities access to the ICM complaint process.
In a groundbreaking decision, the ICM agreed, finding the complaint admissible as to DEG and Proparco. Despite determining that FirstRand’s loan to develop the New Liberty project was not within the ring fences that the development banks had placed on their loans, the ICM accepted the New Liberty complaint on the basis of the development banks’ portfolio-wide approach to financial intermediaries–a first in development finance accountability. The ICM dismissed the complaint against FMO on technical grounds.
The ICM’s decision opened the door to a formal mediation process between the mining company and the affected communities, which the complainants viewed as an opportunity to secure full and fair redress for all of the harms and losses they suffered, hold the company to its prior agreements with communities, and prevent future harm as the mine continues to expand.
Inclusive Development International also traced the gold from Liberia, discovering links to major U.S. brands. Company disclosures revealed that gold from the New Liberty mine was refined at MKS PAMP refinery in Switzerland. This refinery is subject to a number of standards requiring due diligence on human rights issues in the supply chain. These include the Responsible Gold Guidance of the London Bullion Market Association, to which members are required to adhere to in order to access the market. The PAMP refinery supplies gold to some of the largest brand names in the world, including Alphabet, Apple, Disney, Starbucks, and others. Following the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, our researchers found that the gold from the New Liberty mine started being flown to Istanbul, Turkey. From there, we believe it is transported to the Nadir Metal Rafineri, which is also a member of the London Bullion Market’s Good Delivery List and supplies gold to a number of multinational consumer brands, including Apple, Macy’s, and Alphabet. These brands also disclosed that they may be sourcing gold from Liberia in conflict minerals reports to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Using this research, Inclusive Development International called on FirstRand, the European development banks, the gold refineries, and the retail and technology brands that ultimately source gold from New Liberty to ensure that the mining company engaged in good faith mediations with the community to resolve their long-standing grievances.
In February 2023, the ICM’s Independent Expert Panel, which reviews, processes, and reports on complaint processes, published a Preliminary Review Report stating the willingness of both Bea Mountain Mining Corporation and of the communities to participate in a Dispute Resolution Process, which included information sharing, fact-fnding, dialogue and mediation. The mediation spanned several conversations between 2024 and 2025 and resulted in several wins for impacted communities.
The company agreed to construct a water tower in Jawejeh Marvoh to ensure that the community has adequate access to safe and sustainable drinking water. They also agreed to repair a road that community members depended on to access a healthcare clinic, and assured communities that no underground activities are taking place underneath their villages or anywhere outside the closed company premises.
They also agreed to convene regular monthly meetings with the communities. Communities have since expressed happiness about building a more communicative relationship with the company, which they had struggled to develop before the mediation.
However, several issues remain. Affected communities have not been able to access all of the environmental and social impact assessments that they’ve requested, perpetuating concerns around transparency. Larger concerns surrounding the mine’s impacts, such as reduced or even eliminated sources of livelihood were not addressed through mediation. Impacts on wildlife and local agriculture were also not addressed.
The case is an important example of the benefits of pursuing mediation as a strategy for recourse. The affected communities secured several wins that will help address harm caused by the mine, and they have expressed contentment about going through with the mediation process, despite not being fully satisfied with its outcomes. This is often the most realistic outcome of mediation processes for develop-related harm, especially when using an accountability mechanism with its own limitations.
